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Two hundred business leaders, entrepreneurs, Members of Parliament and academics have joined The Telegraph in calling on the Government to boost female entrepreneurship in Britain.

In an open letter, published on International Women's Day, British business owners including Samantha Cameron, Mary Portas, Alexa Chung and Karren Brady, insisted that better access to funding for female founders would help boost the UK economy.

The letter, reproduced in full below, explained that female entrepreneurs are being unfairly held back and their access to capital restricted, with just nine per cent of funding into UK startups currently going to women-run businesses annually.

Backed by figures from tech entrepreneur Baroness Martha Lane Fox to Maria Miller MP, Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, the letter emphasised that, far from being a 'women’s issue', the funding gap has an impact on the UK economy as a whole.

The Federation of Small Businesses has reported that Britain is missing out on more than 1.2 million new enterprises due to the untapped business potential of women, while Deloitte estimated that targeted help for female founders could provide a £100 billion boost to the economy over the next 10 years.

Widespread research has also shown that female entrepreneurs have to battle unconscious bias in pitching rooms, where they struggle to get their ideas taken seriously by predominantly male investors.

Men are — according to the Entrepreneurs Network — 86 per cent more likely than women to be venture capital funded, and 56 per cent more likely to secure angel investment. While women consistently receive fewer and smaller bank loans for higher interest rates than men.

Sophie Jarvis, who runs the Female Founders Forum, which supports the UK’s most successful female entrepreneurs, said: "There is a massive disparity between the funding that men get and the funding that women get.

"Men get more deals, they get more cash, and women get fewer deals and less money. There’s a gender bias at pitching, and there’s also a lack of women at venture capital firms."

Women comprise just 13 percent of decision makers in UK venture capital, and 27 per cent of the venture capital labour force.

The letter comes as an exclusive Telegraph pollreveals that two thirds of female business owners find they are not taken seriously by investors and banks when trying to secure funding for startups.

Consequently, nearly three quarters of female founders are forced to fund their ventures out of their own pockets. The Telegraph found 72 per cent of the women surveyed had used their own credit cards, cash and savings to fund their businesses.

The letter said the reasons behind the disparity were complex, but that figures show a serious funding gap must be addressed “at Government level.”

“With Brexit on the horizon, it has never been more important to back British businesses,” the letter continued. “This Government pledged to be the party of ‘enterprise and of the entrepreneur’.

“We urge you to back up those words with deeds and invest in resource which will help to close this funding gap.”